- Russian attack on Odesa kills three as Ukrainian forces target vessels in Black Sea
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Several people have been killed in Russian attacks on port infrastructure in Odesa and Mykolaiv, and Ukraine said it launched drone strikes on 20 Russian vessels as the warring sides escalated their battle over the Black Sea and key trade routes. Odesa region Governor Oleh Kiper said on Wednesday that a ‘massive’ Russian drone and missile attack on the southern region continued for a fifth day, with civilian, industrial and port infrastructure coming under attack. At least three people were killed and three others wounded in the Russian strikes on Odesa, the city’s military administrator Serhiy Lysak said on Wednesday. … Moscow said on Tuesday that it was preparing to redirect exports following waves of attacks on Russian shipping in the Sea of Azov, while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the Ukrainian attacks on shipping ‘terrorism’.” (07/15/26)
- Iranian regime threatens to block more vital seaways as Trump orders renewed blockade
Source: Reuters
“Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has threatened to close ‘all other export corridors that benefit the U.S. and its allies’, Iranian media reported, after Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. reimposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports. ‘Regional energy exports are either shared by all, or denied to all,’ the IRGC said in a statement carried by Iran’s IRNA state news agency on Wednesday. Analysts have said Iran has been signalling it may use its Houthi allies in Yemen to shut the Bab el-Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea, opening a new front against Washington and putting two of the world’s most vital energy arteries at risk. The narrow gateway links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, through which Saudi oil exports and a substantial share of global shipping pass.” (07/15/26)
- Khalil sues Trump regime, citing KKK Act
Source: Washington Post
“Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist who was detained for months as the federal government sought to deport him, sued Trump administration officials and others on Tuesday, alleging a conspiracy to persecute. The case, filed in federal court in New York, has been brought under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and claims that top administration officials conspired with private organizations such as the conservative Heritage Foundation to terrorize and make an example of Khalil and other noncitizens to intimidate and weaken the pro-Palestinian movement. The case names Secretary of State Marco Rubio, senior presidential adviser Stephen Miller, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, acting attorney general Todd Blanche, former secretary of homeland security Kristi L. Noem, and John Armstrong at the State Department. Khalil also sued the Heritage Foundation as well as Canary Mission and Betar — which describe themselves as defenders of Israel — and their leaders.” (07/14/26)
- Sexual assault victim finally receives $5.x million judgment from perpetrator
Source: NBC News
“E. Jean Carroll has collected her $5 million judgment against President Donald Trump, more than three years after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her, court records show. The money, which was being held in a court escrow account, has been ‘disbursed’ to Carroll’s attorneys, the court filing shows. The amount totaled $5,625,005.48 with interest. … The case arose from a 2022 suit Carroll filed in New York alleging Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store after a chance encounter in 1996, and then defamed her after she came forward with her claims in 2019.” (07/14/26)
- Russia launches NASA astronaut Anil Menon and two cosmonauts to the International Space Station
Source: Space.com
“The International Space Station has three new residents. NASA’s Anil Menon and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina lifted off atop a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:47 a.m. EDT (1447 GMT; 7:47 p.m. local time in Baikonur), heading toward the orbiting lab. … The trio caught up to the ISS after just two orbits, docking with the outpost at 1:52 p.m. EDT (1752 GMT). The two spacecraft were flying 260 miles (418 kilometers) above the Mediterranean Sea at the time, NASA officials said during the agency’s docking webcast.” (07/14/26)
- Yemen: Houthis launch missiles at Saudi Arabia after strikes on Sanaa airport
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Yemen’s Houthis said they launched missiles at Abha airport in south-western Saudi Arabia on Monday in response to air strikes on Sanaa’s airport that they blamed on the kingdom. The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which backs the country’s internationally-recognised [Saudi puppet regime], said its air defences ‘dealt with’ the missiles and no casualties were reported. The Houthis, who control north-western Yemen and are backed by Iran, earlier accused Saudi Arabia of ‘blatant aggression’, saying it had struck the runway of Sanaa’s airport. The strike was claimed by Yemen’s [Saudi puppet regime], which said it wanted to prevent an Iranian plane from landing.” (07/14/26)
- Monitor Amok!
Source: The American Prospect
by Harold Meyerson“There’s a long history of federal government intervention in the internal affairs of unions. The grounds for such interventions have usually run the gamut from ideology and politics (e.g., the Taft-Hartley Act’s purge of Communists from the ranks of union leaders) to corruption (the control of various unions by organized crime, e.g., much of the Teamsters until roughly 1990). But the personal pique of a government official was never really the reason behind any such intervention—until today. In the past three weeks, the federal monitor charged with overseeing the United Auto Workers has become, in effect, the most significant supporter of UAW Vice President Rich Boyer’s campaign to unseat UAW President Shawn Fain in the union’s upcoming quadrennial election, to be decided by a vote of the rank and file in the next few months.” (07/14/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/07/14/monitor-amok-uaw-shawn-fain-investigation/
- Requiem for a Chickenhawk
Source: The Realist Review
by Martin Sieff“[Lindsey] Graham’s supposed transformation into the Apostle of Trump on his personal road to Damascus should have come as no surprise, for it was completely consistent with his entire career of living out one lie after another. As Mary McCarthy once said of Lillian Hellman, every word Graham ever uttered was a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’ Indeed, everything about Graham was a lie – just as are all the sickly sweet, sentimentalized tears now pouring forth at his passing.” (07/14/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/requiem-for-a-chickenhawk
- Social Security Is Not a Generational Contract
Source: The Daily Economy
by Ethan Nevid“How can one sign a contract before birth? That question can’t be answered by President Bill Clinton, who said ‘we mustn’t break the solemn compact between generations,’ in a 1998 address on Social Security. Such a speech constructs Social Security as a contractual mandate in need of protection rather than an insurance and redistribution program. Grand national ‘contracts’ should face significant scrutiny, as they borrow the moral force of a contract without the requirements that define one. … Legally, the four requirements of a contract are offer, consideration, acceptance, and an intention to create legal relations. A person not yet born cannot be offered a contract, consider it in any manner or ask for compensation, accept it in any way, or intend legal relations. By any measure, Social Security cannot be a legal contract.” (07/14/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/social-security-is-not-a-generational-contract/
- Rubio’s Anti-ICC Campaign is an Anti-“Sovereignty” Project
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“Rubio’s problem with the ICC isn’t that it can ‘override the courts and constitutions of the U.S. and other sovereign states.’ It’s that when an American allegedly commits a relevant crime on the soil of an ICC member state, the ICC, rather than US courts, adjudicates the matter. To put it a different way, Rubio’s demand of ICC member states is ‘global sovereignty for the US, no sovereignty for anyone else.'” (07/14/26)
- War: The Dreaded Enemy of Liberty
Source: EconLog
by Christopher Coyne & Abigail R Hall“One of the defining features of war is the centralization of state power. War and foreign intervention require the use of resources and the ability to make choices about how to use them. As national governments are responsible for planning, implementing, and overseeing war and other foreign intervention, war necessarily draws peripheral political units (e.g., state and local authorities) toward the political center. … This bureaucratization of life, the drawing of peripheral units of government toward the political center, effectively erodes the pluralism of democratic governments. Instead of working to provide a check or counterbalance to the central government, peripheral political units become aligned with the goals of the central government.” (07/14/26)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/war-the-dreaded-enemy-of-liberty
- The Inconvenient Jew Is One of Zionism’s Biggest Problems
Source: Antiwar.com
by Jason Jones“Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter recently offered what he apparently believed was a devastating answer to those decrying the genocide in Gaza. ‘Jews do not use children’s blood for rituals,’ Leiter said. ‘Jews do not poison wells. And Jews do not starve populations or commit genocide.’ The smear in this common Zionist talking point is obvious: Those who accuse the Israeli government belong in the same moral category as those who spread medieval blood libels against innocent Jews. To say the regime of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has committed genocide is not merely to criticize a government, an army, or a political ideology. It is to accuse ‘the Jews.’ But there is a growing problem for Zionism and its favorite smear: the moral indignation of Jews.” (07/14/26)
- A Horrific System of Death and Destruction of Liberty
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“Let’s give credit where credit is due: The Trump administration, including ICE and the Border Patrol, is showing what needs to be done to ‘secure the border.’ For decades, advocates of America’s socialist system of immigration controls have assumed that it’s possible to have a gentle and benign immigration-control system, one that not only works to keep out illegal immigrants but also treats people with kindness and respect. Among my favorite statist mantras is, ‘We just need comprehensive immigration reform to fix America’s broken immigration system.’ That has always been a pipe dream.” (07/14/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/07/14/a-horrific-system-of-death-and-destruction-of-liberty/
- The Politics of Exclusion
Source: Gideon’s Substack
by Noah Millman“A new Israeli party aimed at finding common ground may only make coalition-building harder.” (07/14/26)
- Socialists to Seize Power?
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Evan Barker isn’t surprised. ‘The democratic socialist surge of the past several weeks has stunned the nation,’ this former Democratic operative wrote last week. ‘From left to right and everywhere in between, people are asking: How did we get here? What does it mean? And will the Democratic Party survive it? The prevailing reaction has been shock.’ She’s not shocked, though, because for half a decade she had worked for ‘a slew of progressive candidates’ teaching ‘DSA-aligned staffers how to build a money machine for the left; coached progressive politicians on how to speak to donors; and collaborated with billionaires to create a robust fundraising network.'” (07/14/26)
- Trump Watch, 07/14/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The Left-Right Silence on Venezuela.” (07/14/26)
- TAC Right Now, 07/14/26
Source: The American Conservative
“TAC Executive Director Curt Mills and Correspondent Harrison Berger speak with Amir Handjani, a partner at Karv Global and board member of The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft who has years of experience in the petroleum industry. They discuss the resumption of hostilities in the Iran War, the status and future of the Strait of Hormuz, and the prospects for ending the conflict.” (07/14/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/tac-right-now-iran-war-restarts/